Colonial America Recipes: Holiday Cakes and Tarts


Godey’s, the leading woman’s magazine of the 19th century, is one of the best year-to-year references for holiday recipes.

The following directions for preparing Tarts and Cakes will not only turn out delicious desserts, but will also provide interesting conversations at dinner parties, and are perfect for Living History events.

This month’s selections are all based on individual contributions to Godey’s, December 1861.

Cranberry Tart

  • To every pint of cranberries allow a teaspoonful of lemon juice, and three ounces of good moist sugar [use fresh, frozen or canned cranberries]
  • Pour all the juice of your cranberries into a basin [this assumes that you have mashed them to produce the juice]
  • Wash the cranberries in a pan, with plenty of water, pick out all the bad ones, and put the cranberries into a dish
  • Add to them the sugar and lemon-juice
  • Pour the juice out of the basin gently to them, so as to leave behind the dirt and sediment which will settle at the bottom [using a cheese cloth makes this much easier]
  • Mix all together, and let it lie while you are make your pie
  • Thus: line the bottom of your dish with puff-paste [a pastry dough containing many alternating layers of butter and dough] not quite a quarter of an inch thick
  • Put your cranberries upon it, without any juice, and cover with the same paste not quite half an inch thick
  • Close the edges as usual, ice it, and bake it from three-quarters of an hour to an hour, according to size
  • Simmer the juice a few minutes, which serve up with your tart in a small sauce tureen
  • A pint of cranberries makes a pretty sized tart.
Custard Tart
  • Line a deep plate with puff-paste
  • Have ready six or eight middling-sized apples, pared and the cores taken out. They should be mellow and pleasant
  • Put into each apple any kind of preserve you have, or a bit of sugar, flavored
  • Now fill the dish with rich custard, and bake it about half an hour
  • Make in the same manner without crust; it is then called custard pudding
Rich Puff Pastry
  • Take for one pound and a half of flour, one pound of butter
  • Divide the butter into three pieces, and take out about one third of the flour to use for rolling in the butter Rib in a third of the butter
    • The copyright of the article Colonial America Recipes: Holiday Cakes and Tarts in 19th Century Recipes is owned by Pat Williams. Permission to republish Colonial America Recipes: Holiday Cakes and Tarts in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

    Go To Page: 1 2 3

    Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic